Tag: Canary Wharf

See the previous post for the first half of how we spent our last day in London using a Tube day-pass to travel around the city.

After our stop at the Marble Arch we headed back to Canary Wharf and the Four Seasons for a break. But first we decided to stop at the plaza outside of the Canary Wharf Station for lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the plaza was filled with office workers from the nearby buildings. This is a great area with food carts, outdoor cafes and a shopping mall at Canada Place. And, there are plenty of places to sit and relax, and do some people watching.

After we arrived at the Canary Wharf station, we headed up the long escalator to the exit.

Signs along the way…

The plaza outside of the underground station at Canary Wharf and the Four Seasons Hotel.

After taking a short rest at the hotel we were on our way again. This time we decided to take the Thames Clipper, a water taxi, to the Westminster stop. The dock is conveniently located right behind the hotel. While the water taxi is popular with tourists, it’s also used for daily commuting between downtown London and Canary Wharf and other areas along the river.

The views from the boat are great.

We got off at the Millennium Pier, which is near the London Eye and a few blocks from
Westminster.

Then we took one last walk along the Thames.

We walked to Westminster and took one last ride on the Tube Back to Canary Wharf.

And then back to Canary Wharf for dinner at Carluccios, a great Italian cafe.

On the way back to the hotel we walked through Canada Place for a little window shopping.

We’re back in London and on the final leg of our trip. Overall this has been an amazing and exciting journey. Matt and I returned the car in Epernay, France with just over 2800 kilometers added to the Renault. We covered a lot of territory, and I ended up with about 2500 photos, even after daily deletions. Most of the photos have not been edited – I will be working on that, and putting galleries on the blog after I return.

Yesterday we decided to just see whatever we happened to come across riding the Tube on a day pass. We also discovered we could use the pass on the River Thames water taxi. One of the stops is at a pier conveniently located behind the Canary Wharf Four Seasons Hotel where we’re staying.
After leaving the hotel we took a 10 minute walk to the Canary Wharf Station and started at 9:55 a.m. These are photos of things we discovered along the way.

From Canary Wharf Station we rode to the Bond Street Station to change lines to Holborn.

There were lots of school children on a field trip. I love the orange vests – a great way to keep track of busy kids.

This is the neighborhood around Holborn – a busy commercial and shopping area. We stopped at a model shop
Matt had read about online before leaving the U.S. and left with a model of a London cab and a few other things.

And then we decided to see what was at the Marble Arch station. Not surprisingly it was an arch, and lot of double decker red buses and a small park.

We took the Tube from Canary Wharf to Westminster, and started the day visiting Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey. With a 2-hour line to go inside the Abbey, we decided to pass. A walk along the Thames sounded more relaxing. After several blocks we took a walk through a neighbor, which ended up being one of the best parts of the day. It was quiet with no tourists or crowds and felt like we were seeing a part of London that was off the beaten path. It was a Westminster neighborhood in the vicinity of Chelsea College of Art and Design. The photos speak for themselves of how quiet and peaceful it was, with great architecture and details. Eventually we headed back to Westminster using the spires of the church as a point of reference.

For a break from walking we rode the tube out to Wembley Park to see Wembley National Stadium, as well as some neighborhoods outside of central London. The tube goes above ground, and while the view from the tracks is not the best, it gave us an idea of what other parts of London looked like. The break gave us new energy to return and walk across London Bridge and on to Tower Bridge, where we finally gave up and rode the water taxi back to Canary Wharf. The dock is located at the hotel, with a great little cafe nearby where we had the best lattes before heading back to the room.

The day was overcast and as a result the sky in all of the photos looks white. I’m hoping for a sunnier day before we leave. I also had hoped to upload larger photos, but with a slow Internet connection and large files, this was the best I could do for now. Enjoy.

We arrived in London to weather that is exactly like Oregon – in the 50’s and raining.The weather feels just like home. The cab ride yesterday from Heathrow to the hotel was a bit hair-raising, exceeding any cab ride to date. After several near misses with motorcycles and bicycles, dodging in and out of traffic and listening to a 21 gun salute (cannons that vibrated the cab) as we waited in traffic by Hyde Park, we finally made it to the Four Seasons at Canary Wharf. Along the way we passed Harrods, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament, Tower Bridge… and a lot of other sites that flew by.

The Four Seasons is located next to the Thames on the historic site of the West India Quay – the center for Britain’s spice trade hundreds of years ago. After checking into the hotel in early afternoon, we took a break and rested from the overnight flight, and then headed out to walk around the Canary Wharf area. Canary Wharf is a financial district filled with banks and office buildings. While busy during the day when we arrived, it’s quiet – almost deserted – in the evening. We discovered the underground station for the Jubilee line, which is a 10-minute walk from the hotel, and several promising restaurants.

We returned from dinner thoroughly soaked but had a great time walking through the Wharf. We ate at the Canteen, a contemporary casual restaurant that serves traditional British food including deviled kidneys, spiced pigs cheeks, mushy peas and scotch egg. We had the fish and chips – it seemed a good way to start our first day in London. On the way back to the hotel we cut through Canada Place office building and ran into a car expo in the lobby. It was filled with high end (Rolls Royce and Bentley), exotic sports (Lamborghini,Maserati, Ferrari) and classic cars. Matt was in heaven and we know Chris would have loved it too. They had a podium where you could sign up for test drives, but we passed. It was tempting though…